A is for Assassination Attempt
by Undomiel5
Summary: Words drifts through the grapevine of SHIELD contacts of an rumored assassination attempt in Ethiopia of a high-profile dignitary. Director Fury dispatches the Twins to investigate the rumors and thwart the attempt, if there actually was going to be one. The Twins do not know as they leave for Ethiopia that the dignitary is someone they never expected.


Disclaimer: I do not own any characters of the Marvel Comics or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. All I own are a handful of original characters and the plot of this story.

* * *

January 2007  
Mid-afternoon  
Jijiga, Ethiopia

When thinking of Africa, sand and heat are two of the first things that would come to the minds of many people. Downtown Jijiga, Ethiopia, had very little of either at present. Blessed by temperatures moderated by the ocean, on this morning in January, the temperature was a pleasant 75 degrees Fahrenheit with mild humidity and a pleasant breeze. If one was used to living in the Northern Hemisphere, those temperatures would seem very unpleasant for wintertime there, but in Africa it was very pleasant weather, very pleasant indeed.

Jijiga, Ethiopia was the capital city of the Somali Region, the eastern most region of Ethiopia and the fourth largest in the whole country. A thriving city of about 125,000 people, most of its inhabitants were Ethiopians with a handful of outsiders thrown in. However, on this day in January, near the edge of the Taiwan Market, the main marketplace in the city, outside a small shop sat a tall, lithe woman whose apperance marked her as not a native to Ethiopia. Her skin was a rich copper, and her hair as black as night. Two gold studs sparkled in her left ear. Her clothing was of western, not African fashion, (though not glaringly so) and in muted colors. Around the perimeter of the same market walked a man of very similar apperance to the woman.

As Asha Hunter sat resting for a few minutes sipping a cool drink, she scanned the crowds for several minutes and then pinpointed her brother's location, and then repeated the cycle. She was bored and hot. Asha along with her brother Charles were both S.H.I.E.L.D agents. One week earlier, they had just finished up a mission in Kenya capturing an arms dealer who was selling weapons to Somali rebels. As they were packing up to return home to America, the siblings caught wind through the grapevine of a rumored assassination attempt on a high-placed foreign dignitary that was to take place in Jijiga, Ethiopia. After being informed of the situation through their handler Phil Coulson, Director Fury had dispatched the siblings to investigate and see if the rumors were true and, if they were true, to foil the attempt.

For one extremely long week now the two siblings had been sleeping in a dingy, grungy, and overly warm safe-house for a few brief hours each night. They had spent the rest of the time following down lead after futile lead from the network of contacts they themselves had built up over the years and from S.H.I.E.L.D contacts and trying to find out any scrap of information about when and where this rumored assassination attempt might take place and against whom. For a week, they had roamed through the busy city, maneuvering through crowds to get where they wanted to go and at the same time trying not to draw attention to themselves. For a week, they had found almost no information to go on, except that the assassination might (emphasis on might) be by sniper and the attack would happen very soon. But then, suddenly, on the afternoon of the eight day, after a week of infuriatingly little progress, everything changed.

Asha was a hunter by trade and a skilled one at that. Long years of practice, first hunting game in her youth, and then tracking people for S.H.I.E.L.D., along with her own special gifts had made sure of that. These hunter's instincts allowed her pick out those who stood out in a crowd for whatever reason: the weakest, the wary, the uneasy. Standing out in a crowd when a predator was near was usually a bad idea, but in this case she hoped it might save a life.

Towards the center of the marketplace, a tall man, somewhat taller than those around him, with dark skin and close-cropped hair was slowing making his way through the crowds, stopping here and there to gaze at the contents of the surrounding stalls that were selling a large variety of goods. He was dressed nicely but in a similar style to those around him so not to stand out, yet his manner and bearing made him stand out to one who knew what to look for. Nearby two women prowled the marketplace, each carrying multiple hidden weapons from what Asha could see around the crowds. These two women were pretending to examine the merchandise, but Asha could tell after watching them for several minutes that they were really keeping an eye out for the tall man.

 _Bodyguards_. Asha thought to herself. _I think we have our dignitary_. _It's too much of a coincidence not to be._

Leaving a tip for her drink, she rose from her table and moved out into the crowds and started making her way into the marketplace. While still keeping a close eye on her surroundings, she allowed a small portion of her attention to drift inwards and to touch the mental bond she shared with her brother as mutants. As she did so, she could feel his boredom and slight annoyance with the situation that mirrored her own feelings.

*I think I see our dignitary.* She said telepathically, scanning the crowd to pick out her brother. "Tall black man with two female bodyguards. About 20 yards in front of me on my 10 o'clock."

Asha saw Charles slowly straighten up and start to casually scan the crowds a little more carefully. *It's about time. I was starting to think this mission was a waste.* He replied in the same manner, the annoyance and exasperation with the situation started to fade from his mental voice. "Ah, I see him."

*I am going to start moving in. I need to get close enough to warn him without spooking the crowds."

*No stampedes, please,* Charles replied, *not in this crowd.*

Asha gave a mental nod of agreement. The market place was quite crowded. A stampede had the potential to be both disastrous and deadly. Neither sibling wanted to be the cause of collateral damage. That was not how they did their work.

Charles continued after a few moments of silence, *I'll start looking for a possible platform for the shooter.*

*Try the south-side. The buildings are tallest there and have the most escape routes.*

With their temporary plan-of-actions set, Asha withdrew that part of herself from their shared mental bond and turned all her attention to making her way through the crowd while attracting as little attention as possible. Her fear was that the guards might take her for a threat, attack her, and leave the dignitary even more exposed.

As she walked, it took all of Asha's concentration and mental strength not to look back toward where her brother was heading, toward where the sniper might be. She hated having her back to a threat, hated feeling exposed. She couldn't defend herself against a threat she couldn't see. The hairs on the back of her neck were rising. Her shoulders wanted to twitch. It took focus to keep her concentration on her own task and her heartrate even. She had her work to do, and she needed to let her brother do his.

It took nearly 15 minutes for Asha to close the gap to only 10 feet without attracting attention. She paused for a moment to watch the dignitaries' path and plot out in her head where he might go next. When she had finished, she felt her heart leap in fear. He was currently almost totally blocked from the sight of where they guessed the sniper would be by a long, tall cart selling colorful clothing. But at his slow, ambling pace he would traverse that space and be out in the open and totally exposed in less than a minute.

Just then her brother's voice floated through her head. *I see our sniper. On the south-side, as you guessed, on top of a 4-story building. Sun reflected off the muzzle. He's cocky, not even bothering to conceal himself.*

There was only the barest hint of mental panic as Asha replied. *You need to hurry. You have less than a minute before the target is exposed.*

*My route up the outside is good, but not that good. I can't climb that fast.* Charles's voice was calm and matter-of-fact which helped Asha to stomp her rising panic back down.

*Do the best you can! I'll make sure the target is safe.*

*Be careful, sister!* Charles replied, and then his voice faded from her head.

Asha spent an extremely long 30-seconds watching the target and hoping and praying that her brother could reach the shooter in time against all odds, so as to avoid a panic, a huge scene, and a possible stampede. But it was not to be. The target was within several paces of open ground, when Asha heard faintly the wracking of a rifle slide. She knew she had only seconds. The bodyguards would not be able to get there in time, so she would have to do this the hard way.

Asha did not even have time to shout out a warning, not that it would have done any good if she had, since she did not speak any of the native dialects of Ethiopia. With a rush she leapt forward into a run, calling on the strength and speed of the great cats. The bodyguards and the dignitary looked up with a start at the same time at her sudden movements. The two women would have moved forward to protect their charge but did not have the time. Within 3 seconds of her first leap she bowled into the dignitary and knocked him to the ground, using her own body as a shield.

She was not a moment too soon. Even as she reached the dignitary, she had heard the crack of the rifle and then, as she knocked into the dignitary, her body was thrown forward by the punch of the bullet hitting her in the back. Asha could feel and hear as the bones in her shoulder broke under the bullet's impact. All the breath had been driven out of her lungs. She struggled to take a new breath. For a moment she felt nothing, and then a burning pain, originating in left shoulder, began to burn across her body.

She pushed herself up off the body of the man she had just saved and then collapsed to the ground beside him. Faintly she could hear the roar of her brother, a heart-stopping tiger's roar that was full of heart-wrenching grief and overpowering anger, and, turning her head slightly, saw him reach the roof.

The two bodyguards had reached them by now. One grabbed Asha's coat and pulled her quickly behind shelter while the other helped the dignitary behind shelter as well, using her own body as a temporary shield. Asha could hear them speaking quickly but quietly for a few moments between themselves in yet another language, not one of the local dialects. Asha's eyes started to drift closed then. It was hard to breathe. Her thoughts were fuzzy. She knew that was an effect of blood loss—she could feel warmth coating her left side, left shoulder, and back—from her wound. She tried to move, to push herself up but could not summon the strength to move or even try to put pressure on her wound. She just wanted to rest. For just a moment. Just a second. Then she would move.

* * *

As awareness slowly started to return, the first thing Asha was conscious of was the slow beep, beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor. The second thing she noticed was that she was lying in a soft bed. The last thing she noticed was that she could not move her left shoulder _at all_. The beeping started to increase as she slowly clawed her way out of oblivion. Finally, she managed to drag her eyes open.

Where she was she had no idea. From every indication she was in hospital. The light was dim. A window was nearby, but dark green curtains were drawn across it. The air was pleasantly warm. An IV was in her right arm, and, if she craned her head, she could see an IV stand holding blood and other medicine by the head of the bed. Her left arm was strapped to her chest, and her left shoulder was enclosed in a large and clunky brace. The door to her room was closed, and she was alone.

Suddenly, there was a noise. The door began to open. Turning her head to see, Asha began to tense. Her heart sped up, as adrenaline flooded her body in preparation for possible flight or fight, not that she would have much success at either in her current, weakened state. The first person in view, when the door finished opening, was her brother. He was in different clothes but seemed unharmed. There were two people behind him: one male, one female – both dark skinned. But only Charles moved further into the room for the moment: the other two paused in the doorway.

"Peace, my sister!" He said in Cheyenne, the language the two had grown up speaking. "We're safe here."

"Where are we?" Her voice was rough and hoarse.

"I promise I'll explain everything soon," Charles coaxed, "but let the doctors look at you first. You've been unconscious for several days, and you were badly hurt."

Asha finally relaxed. Even the brief movements had exhausted her. "You'll stay?" She croaked, not wishing to be left alone with strangers in a strange place when she was too weak to defend herself.

Charles gave a small smile, "Always." He moved farther into the room and let the doctors past.

The doctors poked and prodded and asked her a lot of questions, but finally the two siblings were left alone.

"Where are we?" Asha asked again, her voice a little stronger after her brother helped her get a drink of water.

"Wakanda," Charles replied.

"You're joking? Wakanda is an isolationist state. Its borders are closed. No Wakandans have been seen outside it for … forever." Her mind was fuzzy from exhaustion and from the effects of the heavy doses of painkillers she was on. She tried to make sense of what her brother was saying. He wasn't the type to pull her leg, not when she was injured, at least.

"That's what they want us to think," said Charles with a slight smile, "We actually are in Wakanda. Truly, sister."

"How? Why?"

"The man you took a bullet for is T'Challa, the Crown Prince of Wakanda. All this," he said, gesturing with one hand to the accommodations, "is to repay, in part, the debt they say they owe you."

* * *

Years Later  
Wakanda

"And that was how the Panther king and his Tiger queen first met," Asha said, bringing her story to a close.

"But, mama," cried the boy curled up beside her with his head on her shoulder, "you mustn't stop there. You haven't finished the story yet."

"Yes, my heart, I actually have," Asha replied with a teasing smile, "you asked for how we _first_ met. Our encounter in the marketplace in Ethiopia was our first meeting. The one in the hospital was our _second_ meeting."

"Maaaammmmmaaaaa," the boy cried in exasperation at his mother's teasing, stretching out her name into many more syllables than it was actually supposed to be, as only a child can do.

"You have asked for this story so many times, shouldn't you be able to recite it to me by now?"

"That's no fun."

"It's getting late, my son," Asha said, fighting back a smile, "and you need to sleep."

"I'm not tired," he replied, fighting (but failing) to conceal a yawn, "Won't you finish? Please finish!"

"Tomorrow, I will," she said, smoothing a hand across his short cropped curls, "now lay down. Your father will be in soon to say good night."

The boy pouted but lay down without further protests as his mother rose from his bed. "Good night, mama."

"Good night, T'Chaka."


End file.
